Chicago changes its community policing program

CHICAGO (AP) — The Chicago Police Department is changing the way it runs its community policing program.

The move puts district commanders in charge of their own programs to fit the needs of their own communities.

At a Tuesday news conference, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said district commanders are in a much better position to determine what their own programs should look like than someone in the department's headquarters.

McCarthy says the shift in the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy — commonly known as CAPS — is the latest part of a crime-fighting strategy that's already put more police officers on the beat and tailored various strategies to specific neighborhoods.

He says the head of the department's patrol division will oversee the programs, but the individual commanders will run them.